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'Memory Wound' Will Cut Through Site Of Norway's Massacre

This illustration, provided by artist Jonas Dahlberg, shows his vision for a "memory wound" that will cut through the Norwegian island where dozens of people died during an attack by a right-wing extremist in 2011.
(Jonas Dahlbert Studio / EPA/Landov
)

This week, the design was chosen for a memorial to the victims of the July 22, 2011, attacks in Norway that left 77 people dead and several hundred more wounded. Swedish artist Jonas Dahlberg's vision for what's being called a "memory wound" seems likely to join the list of such memorials that evoke strong feelings.

Dahlberg's concept cuts a channel through Utoya Island, where 69 of the victims — most of them young people attending a political camp — were shot and killed by right-wing extremist Anders Behring Breivik.

"Visitors are guided along a wooden pathway through the forest, creating a contemplative journey to the site of the cut. A pathway traverses into a tunnel, leading within the rocky landscape directly to the dramatic edge of the void.

"At the border ... [visitors] can see the flat vertical stone surface of the other side, where the names of those who died will be visibly inscribed into the terrain. The names will be close enough to read clearly yet ultimately out of reach, an acknowledgement of what is forever irreplaceable."

TheJournal.ie adds that "in a touching addition, the landmass which is taken away to create the void will be moved to a second memorial site at the Government Quarter in Oslo. It will be used to create a path between two of the buildings there, with the names of the eight people killed in Breivik's bomb there the same day inscribed along the edge."

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